Movies for life!

Hollywood Theater Dormont

The Hollywood Theater opened around 1924 and included a bowling alley and billiards in the basement. By 1933, RKO Stanley operated the theater. In the 1940s, Warner Bros. purchased the theater from the Murray family and subsequently gutted and remodeled the building. The theater had a seating capacity of about 650 downstairs and 250 in the balcony. For many years in the 1950s and 1960s the Hollywood Theater was one of Stanley Warner’s main second-run neighborhood houses in Pittsburgh. The Hollywood played Warner, Universal, RKO, Disney, and United Artists films. The Harris South Hills, about a mile away, ran competing Fox, MGM, Columbia, and Paramount films. The Hollywood Theater’s original marquee, which contained thousands of bulbs and two glass attraction panels, was removed when the city widened the street and the glass tile facade was replaced with stucco.

As with many urban movie palaces, the VCR and Blockbuster video stores in the 1980s severely affected attendance at theaters. The Hollywood barely survived, but by the mid 1990s, the interior was showing signs of age and neglect. It closed in 1998.

In 2006, the Bradley Center, an agency serving children with mental, emotional and developmental disabilities, signed a lease with the building’s owner, Hollywood Partners, LLC, and renovated the theater. During the renovation process, seating was decreased to 300 to offer more leg space and a more comfortable viewing experience. When it reopened the following year, teens from the Bradley Center manned the theater to gain essential work experience. Unfortunately, the venture did not work and the theater closed in 2008. A group of mid-west investors were the next to give it a try, reopening the Hollywood in August 2009; it closed again in the spring of 2010.

A non-profit group called the Friends of the Hollywood Theater reopened the Hollywood in May of 2011 and began a new chapter for this historic building.

A recent event on the official calendar for the venue includes a 40th Anniversary screening of Logan’s Run, where “Logan’s Run-inspired dress is encouraged.” Other events include a 50th Anniversary of the release of Daleks: Invasion Earth and a Doctor Who Party.

Another interesting calendar entry includes a screening of a newly restored print of the 1925 Oscar Micheaux silent film classic Body and Soul starring Paul Robeson. The screening is accompanied by an original score by hip hop artist and community activist Jasiri X.